Castor Wiki
CASTOR Castor is a city located on the large and commercially important Ífingr river. It has a population with 1.5 million people, with 4 million in the greater metropolitan area. The city has 18 districts. Major industries include avionics, zero-gravity fashion, and tourism, with an important tourist draw being the nearby Xipe Totec ruins. The city is known for its colorful nightlife and cultural activities; monorail transit system; distinctive local traditions (Taily Heads and Sixes, see SPORTS below); and occasionally corrupt and contentious politics. In recent decades, immigration from Indorat (approx. 200 miles away), a declining manufacturing city, has changed the character of Castor due to an influx of new residents. The city's official bird is the white-throated kingfisher. Its nickname is “The Twin City.” Castor is also known for the Ífingr River Bridge Collapse, one of the worst urban accidents of the last 50 years, and a major turning point in the city’s civic life. GEOGRAPHY The Ífingr River is large and slow-flowing, cutting through the city center from northwest to east. Three islands in the river, Americus, Eurasia, and Tasmania, also sometimes called Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades Islands, are maintained as a nature preserve. They are known as a habitat for beavers. Zeus / Americus Island is the largest of the three, and in addition to a beaver colony it is a sanctuary for a large population of white-throated kingfishers. The flat, marshy Eurasia / Poseidon is the smallest, and often becomes submerged during rainy season. The city's most significant geographic landmark is Kastri Hill. The hill is rich with limestone on its northern side, and it was formerly a quarry and source of building material for much pre-modern construction in the city. Today the quarry is unused. Kastri is famously one of Castor’s most beautiful sites due to the preservation of a thick growth of black cherry (also historically of importance as a building material). Castor's most popular park, Montgolfier Park, was created in the 1910s on what was then the outskirts of Castor. It extends from the western edge of the wealthy Reginald district down the slope to the edge of the Ífingr river, and to the northwest along its north bank. The park is named for the Montgolfier Brothers, the French duo who invented the hot air balloon in the late 18th century. Its central location and mix of densely forested areas and large, gently sloping meadows makes it a popular destination for locals and tourists all year round. The urban fabric was carved from forest terrain and much of the original vegetation is maintained, most notably the substantial mountainous woodland around the Xipe Totec ruins, Castor’s most famous ancient site. Old growth trees and forest lakes are preserved in parks away from the center. NEIGHBORHOODS The central district is Castor’s most prominent neighborhood. It is the oldest part of Castor, and has dense, walkable streets, and no street grid for about a mile radius. It is colloquially referred to as Castor Core or "The Core." Real estate interests have been trying to break off everything north of the main monorail line under the name “Old Town Castor.” Though it has recently experienced a renaissance, Castor Core formerly had a seedy reputation and was known for petty crime. It is also famous for live music, though many locals complain that the new, cleaned-up Core lacks creative vitality. Several years ago a Tingschwack business conglomerate attempted, unsuccessfully, to launch a reenactment-based project, akin to Colonial Williamsburg, under the tagline "Classic Castor, Classy Castor!" The other prominent district is Reginald, which encompasses the oldest of the wealthy hilltop neighborhoods. It is not known where the name Reginald derives from. Godiva is a riverfront commercial district, focusing on high-end retail. Immigrants, including the recent influx from Indorat, have been concentrated in outlying neighborhoods. CLIMATE The region has four distinct seasons, three of which (spring, summer, and fall) are fairly temperate. The clear air and constant breeze make it ideal for flying from April until November. However, when cold air flows down from the hilltops to the valley in the winter months, an inversion layer is created and the weather becomes very erratic. Fog, tornadoes, and extreme thunderstorms can arise seemingly out of nowhere. EARLY CASTOR Not much is known about the earliest inhabitants of the Castor area. Archeological remains of the nearby Xipe Totec Temple suggest a sophisticated civilization that existed some 2,000 years ago. However, this civilization mysteriously vanished. The modern settlement of Castor began at the tops of hills and spread to the bottom, with valley dwellers being considered inferior. Geography was thus important in marking class division within the city from its origins. Though archaic, the Hilltop/Valley Person distinction remains part of city lore. Impoverished new immigrants are sometimes still colloquially referred to as Valley Girls/Boys; within Castorian teenage culture an especially virile youth is commonly referred to as a 'Hill Billy.' The name Castor derives from the second brightest star in Gemini. According to the most popular story, it was given to the town by Stuart, swineherd, astronomer, and leader of early modern settlement in Castor. Another, competing story holds that the name Castor derives from the Latin for “beaver,” an important animal in the town’s life due to its river location. RECENT HISTORY In the mid-1960s, Castor became celebrated for its nude beaches, which span more than two miles of riverfront on the city's south side. The well-known nudist Hector Alfanso started a commune alongside the river in Castor's Godiva district in 1962. Though the commune disbanded in 1965, the nude beach survived, despite numerous attempts by the city's conservative politicians to shut it down. After the nude exercise craze of the 1970s died down, the beach waned in popularity. In 1994, the owner of a popular gay club decided to open an outpost of the well-known Indorati dance club, Coq au Vin, on the sand. By the mid-2000s, the club had become one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations. In the late 1980s, Castor experienced an epidemic of methamphetamine use, which largely affected downtown areas in and around Castor Core. After an expose in the weekly alternative newspaper, The Beaver, revealed the primary source of the drug's production to be a former cough syrup factory that had been converted into an artist's squat, the city shut down the building on July 16, 1988 in the largest police raid in Castor history. Fourteen residents, including painter John Smiley and radical dental hygienist Sally "Waterpik" Wachs, were arrested and sentenced to prison time. The incident had major political ramifications, with the conservative Jeanine Smortburg triumphing in the next election with a “get tough on crime” platform and the slogan “Castor Strong, Castor Clean.” The Smortburg administration’s giveaway of land to real estate interests in Castor and Godiva in the name of attracting more affluent residents set the stage for the transformation of the area and the loss of its traditional bohemian character. Her charged rhetoric also led to major protest among Indorati communities, who felt unfairly targeted. Addiction rates have remained relatively low since, though many argue that drug addiction rates were already falling before Smortburg’s clean-up initiatives. In 1989, Castor opened the city's first drug outpatient clinic. Recent studies by reputable non-profits suggest that artisanal bath salt abuse may be supplanting meth addiction as the metropolis' primary vice. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY Castor was traditionally a shipping town with an active inland port, and a center of the logging industry. In recent years, global competition has severely reduced its importance as a port, while environmental concerns have led to the curtailment of logging. TOURISM Today, Castor’s main industry is tourism. The slogan of the city’s current tourism campaign is “An Escape That Delivers.” The most important tourist attraction for Castor is the Xipe Totec Temple, discovered in 1880. The site was at the time viewable only from the air, located at the top of a densely overgrown mountain ridge. During World War II, a bomb once again destroyed the bridge to the mountains, rendering Xipe Totec difficult to access until well into the 1950s, after which overgrowth was completely cleared and Xipe Totec became a notable destination. The temple is believed to have been the site of large-scale human and animal sacrifices. Its most notable architectural features are the large chutes through which sacrifices are thought to have been ejected into the valley below, as well as massive and maze-like temple complex. Only a few examples of what would have been the temple’s most important feature, giant-sized and life-like sculptures of human heads, remain. In the 1990s, tourist flows to Xipe Totec from Castor topped 200,000 people, leading to substantial wear on the site and surrounding forestland, which is preserved. Today, trips are more regulated, and access limited to licensed tours. However, environmental concerns persist. Balloon tours departing from Castor that overlook the site from above are popular. FASHION In the early 1990s, after a series of news reports on the prevalence of twins born in Castor, manufacturer Harlan G. Maenae began making identical onesies connected by a soft elastic cord that he devised to have enough give to allow some measure of independence but taught enough to ensure the benefits of what he called "Nature's Buddy System." The outfits were a success, and Maenae created an expanded line of twin-themed apparel, toys, and homewares. While the twinware craze proved short-lived, a number of other small fashion houses joined Marnae’s Twinworks. Castor continues to be a hub for boutique fashion designers, concentrated in Godiva. Maenae’s twin fashions inspired national media attention, and gave Castor its most well-known modern nickname, "The Twin City." EDUCATION Castor maintains a strong public education system. The city's university, Castor Universities and Colleges for Liberal Arts and Sciences (CUCLAS), is a medium sized university serving both undergraduates and graduates. While its student body draws largely from locals, it is a well-ranked school and attracts a national student body. NIGHTLIFE Much of Castor's nightlife caters to tourism. Many bars and restaurants can be found in The Core, and are frequented by guests of the many hotels in the area. The Core is also home to many world-class music venues. While tourists frequent The Kastri, named after one of their most beautiful sites and a venue for many big name, top 40 acts, locals can be found at the smaller, independent venue, The Logger, which welcomes many up-and-coming local artists, and is famously where local legends The Goal Police played their first gig in 1980. The Core is also known for a number of bars and venues specializing in local games such as Taily Heads (see SPORTS, below). The thriving creative community, brought on by the rise in creative jobs, has also spawned growth along the river, welcoming many nightlife spots, from cocktail bars to aerial-arts themed dive bars. Castor is also known for its world-class vegetarian restaurants, many specializing in seaweed salad, a local delicacy. Reginald is widely known to have the best vegetarian cuisine in the city, with chef Alia Mijean’s restaurant Wet Leaf spawning a nationwide craze for seaweed cuisine. All popular nightlife spots are accessible by the monorail and by horse. ARCHITECTURE & SKYLINE Castor’s most famous buildings are the twin Godiva Towers, located on the Godiva waterfront, called the “Teefers,” “Beaver Teefers,” or “The Teeth.” Designed by architect Michel Bass in the 1980s, in collaboration with local engineer Maxwell Budde, the Towers are an example of postmodern design. They are clad with faux alabaster panels, and feature a frieze of river imagery and local history around the entryway at street level. Bass’s white Towers are deliberately made to resemble abstracted beaver teeth. Tower 1’s 35th-story View Bar advertises “Beaver Hour,” when the buildings’ shadow “take a bite out of the city,” on one side, and the bar offers breathtaking views of the river, on the other. In 1970, a young Maxwell Budde also designed the Ífingr River Bridge, at the time considered his masterpiece for its combination of modern engineering and large-scale structural wood components that referenced local Castor building traditions. The Ífingr River Bridge won numerous design awards. Following the Ífingr River Bridge Collapse of 1990 (see below) it is today better remembered to engineers as a cautionary tale. CULTURAL EVENTS The annual Castor Montgolfier Festival is the third-largest gathering of hot air balloons in the world. The Montgolfier Park Roundhouse has the distinction of housing the world’s largest hammock. Each June, Castor’s annual "Frequent Flyer Fiesta" unites trapeze tumblers, bungie artists, hammock hangers, and air mimes from around the globe. It is the most famous festival of aerial arts in the world. It is a relatively recent addition to the city’s cultural calendar, dating from the city’s push into tourism in the mid-1990s. On October 7, Castor holds an annual hot rod convention whereby the city’s car-owners are invited to dress up their cars in hot-rod costumes. The car-less are encouraged to dress up as well. The Car Fair was originally inspired as a protest against the expansion of public transportation in the 1960s. However it has been embraced more broadly as part of Castor’s civic life. In 1987, The Beaver referred to this annual gathering as a “jolly warm-up to the Halloween season.” MUSEUMS & ZOO Castor’s Museum of the Science of Flight (MotSoF) has educational exhibits ranging from prehistoric birds like the crested pterosaur Tupandactylus, through to the Wright Brothers, WWII fighter planes, and commercial jetliners. Its most popular permanent exhibit, "Top Twenty Biggest Flight Fails," focuses on failed experiments and what innovators of today can learn from them. The Beaver Museum, located in Godiva, is known for a wide variety of exhibits related to the city’s signature animal. It is the only museum dedicated to beavers in the world. It’s motto is “More Pelts Than Anyone Else.” The Beaver Museum, a staple of middle-school field trips, is considered an embarrassing novelty by many younger city residents. It is a frequent target of lewd graffiti. The Beaumont Zoo, located at the north edge of Castor Core, is famous for its pandas (Kiki and Ling Ling), as well as meerkats, flamingos, and, of course, beavers. For years, Beaumont Zoo’s most famous attraction was Ralph the Polar Bear, who still features prominently in advertising. Beaumont Zoo is named after Henry Landis Beaumont, a processed foods heir, gentleman naturalist, and world traveller from Castor who died in 1968. Large donations from Castor’s wealthy elite created the zoo after his death in honor of his passion for the wild. A bronze statue of Beaumont is sited just inside the gates of the zoo. BEAVERS The most notable species of local beaver is the Tasmania beaver, unique to the area. It resembles a dog and sometimes feeds on the local bird population. Due to overpopulation, Tasmania beavers have been known to escape their preserve in the Ífingr river and burrow under houses. Substantial local policy debate has been focused on whether the animals should be classified as a nuisance instead of being protected. Tasmania Island, also known as Hades Island because of the mud-filled pit at its center, became the focus of civic uproar three decades ago when poachers killed most of its beaver colony. The incident sparked racial tension as the poachers were alleged (though never proven) to be from Indorat, and the incident occurred at the time of the first large-scale influx of Indoratis. Since this incident, a group of environmentalist militiamen who call themselves the Sons of Hades has patrolled the waters around the islands. With their nativist politics, the Sons of Hades have proven a force in local politics, mainly backing candidates with strong get-tough-on-immigrant policies, including most notably Jeanine Smortburg, the most divisive politician of the city’s recent history. No other poaching attempts have occurred. The Hades Island beaver colony is thriving once again. SPORTS In addition to more familiar sports, Castor is known for two indigenous pastimes: Taily Heads and Sixes. Taily Heads is a sport in which two teams of eight players flip small round metal "coin-like" objects with their thumbs. The game is played with a small disc, also known as a “discette,” with each team's logo emblazoned on one side. Points are scored when, in turn, players are able to flip the discette and have it land with their team's logo facing up. Sixes is a similar game played with six teams and a six sided cuboid. Combined, the two sports have participation levels in excess of 90% with native Castorians, making the pastimes into major money-makers, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Dalila Dawes, the most decorated athlete and first inductee to the Castor Sports Hall of Fame, compiled a then unheard of 51.9% successful flip rate over her first 5 seasons (1970-75). Three of the 12 wealthiest Castor residents are professional athletes. A popular myth has it that you can tell native-born Castorians by their “big thumbs,” a reference to the Taily Heads/Sizes craze. TRANSPORT Since 1962, the Castor Transit Authority has run three above-ground rail lines. All three trains meet in the city center, on Montgolfier Avenue running along the southeastern edge of Montgolfier Park. The express Beaver Line runs all the way out to the suburbs and makes stops at well-trafficked spots in the city, including CUCLAS and the Beaver Museum. The other two lines, the Pickadilly and the Maenae, make local stops, making them popular forms of transit for local residents. The Maenae is a monorail transit network accompanied by pedestrian bridges that run parallel to the monorail. Formerly, there was a fourth line, the Castor Line, which was partially damaged during the Ífingr River Bridge collapse (see below). Bicycle-only infrastructure has always been a priority and exists completely separate to the automotive street network. In 2012, it was estimated by the city government that 33.5 percent of local residents use bicycles as an alternative means of transport at least four times a week. Hilly terrain remains a major impediment to bicycle-only transport, although the Castor Transit Authority has tried to promote bicycle use by allowing all passengers to carry their bikes onboard the monorail, allowing them to ride to and from the above-ground rail stations. ÍFINGER RIVER BRIDGE COLLAPSE In 1990, the city experienced a pair of major tragedies, Superstorm Tobey and the Ífingr River Bridge Collapse. On July 4, Castor’s infamously volatile summer weather yielded a particularly unexpected storm, Superstorm Tobey. In addition to the several deaths, residents experienced loss of homes and property, especially in Castor’s waterside locations, washing away most of its historic nude beaches. There was also considerable infrastructure damage, including to the famous Maxwell Budde-designed Ífingr River Bridge. In the immediate aftermath, mayor Jeanine Smortburg faced extreme criticism from the Sons of Hades that she was paying too much attention to damage to outlying, hard-hit Indorati neighborhoods. To satisfy her critics, Smortburg rushed the reopening of the Ífingr River Bridge, which included the Castor Line monorail, as well as a substantial arterial highway servicing Reginald, home to many members of Smortburg’s wealthy donor base. The results were tragic. The unexpected collapse Ífingr River Bridge on July 10 as a train crossed killed 56 and injured 120, as well as damaging a substantial part of the riverbank. The Ífingr River Bridge Collapse incident was also the scene of some memorable acts of heroism. With the river still elevated and full of rushing water, more than a dozen people were saved from death in the shallows of the submerged Eurasia / Poseidon Island by hot-air balloon pilot Rex Ohr, who operated Xipe Totec Balloon Tours from Montgolfier Park. Maneuvering his balloon down for rescue, Ohr responded faster than river rescue crews to the unfolding emergency. Amid recrimination following the Collapse, mayor Smortburg commissioned a panel to investigate the causes of the collapse. In October, the panel, stacked with Smortburg cronies, exonerated her from culpability for rushing the reopening of Ífingr River Bridge. It found instead that in certain components of Maxwell Budde’s famous wood bridge, a poor red cherry substitute had been used in place of the traditional sturdy black cherry on key joints, as a cost-cutting measure due to the high price of protected local black cherry. The findings split public opinion in Castor. Some thought Budde was being scapegoated, while a sizable number believed, in the words of an inflammatory editorial in The Beaver, that Budde “should be dropped from a hot air balloon into the Ífingr River to his death, as from the shoots of old Xipe Totec temple.” Smortburg adopted the town council recommendation and banished Budde for life. However, she lost the next election to painter John Smiley. Disgraced during the 1980s drug epidemic, Smiley had served two years but became a hero when he saved a variety of animals, including Ralph the Polar Bear, from the flooded Beaumont Zoo in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Tobey. A few months after the hurricane and bridge collapse, a now-legendary benefit concert was held to raise funds for victims. The event featured several then-famous local and international bands, including Space Apple, The Goat Police, and psychedelic supergroup Caterpillar Midriff. “River of Rock: The Concert for Castor,” featuring the title song (written by The Goal Police frontwoman Nastra Johnson, born in Castor), has been listed as one of the top 10 benefit concert albums of all time. NOTABLE CASTORIANS Hector Alfanso, nudist 'Henry Landis Beaumont, heir, naturalist, world traveller '''Maxwell Budde, engineer Dalila Dawes, professional Taily Head player 'Nastra Johnson, singer/songwriter, The Goat Police Harlan G. Maenae, founder, Twinworks Alia Mijean, restauranteur Rex Ohr, balloonist, hero Balbia Really, first woman firefighter ''''John Smiley, painter, politician Cy Twombly, painter, 1928-2014' Latest activity Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Find videos about your topic by exploring Wikia's Video Library. Category:Browse